In the story, Tyrion uses his status as a Lannister to mitigate the impact of the marginalization and derision he has received all of his life — even from his own family. Knowing that no one will ever take him seriously, he soothes his inadequacies with wine, wit and self-indulgence. But as the peaceful rule of King Robert Baratheon begins to come apart, Tyrion sees how ill-equipped his family are to hold everything together. He first saves his own neck from the vengeful Catelyn Stark and her sister Lysa Arryn, then is tasked by his father to impose order on the capital of King's Landing — as well as his nephew Joffrey, the new king — as civil war is sparked. Tyrion struggles to strengthen and protect the city and family who hate him and refuse to see the peril they are in; when his father returns, Tyrion becomes vulnerable to the wrath and machinations of the self-serving courtiers who surround Joffrey — including Tyrion's own scheming sister Cersei. Tyrion escapes death again but at great cost, and in fleeing Westeros finds himself in even more danger, but without his Lannister resources.

Character description[edit]

In A Game of Thrones (1996), Tyrion is introduced as the third and youngest child of wealthy and powerful Tywin Lannister, the former Hand of the King. Tyrion's elder sister Cersei is the Queen of Westeros by virtue of her marriage to King Robert Baratheon, and Cersei's male twin Jaime is captain of the royal security detail, the Kingsguard. Described as an ugly ("for all the world like a gargoyle"), malformed dwarf with mismatched green and black eyes, Tyrion possesses the pale blond hair of a Lannister but has a complicated relationship with the rest of them.[7][8] While he is afforded the privilege and luxuries of his family, he is treated as a "second class noble" because of his stature.[9] Additionally, Tyrion's mother Joanna had died giving birth to him, and Tywin and Cersei loathe him because they blame him for her death. While Tywin bears no affection for Tyrion, he nevertheless feels a sense of duty to his son, raising him in the Lannister fold and extending Tyrion a share of the family wealth. In contrast to Tywin and Cersei, Jaime has great affection for Tyrion, and treats him with kindness, respect, friendship and love.[10]Lev Grossman of Time wrote in 2011:

Tyrion Lannister [is] the brilliant, black-witted dwarf whose family has had the firmest grip on power for much of the series, though that's not saying much. Tyrion is another good example of what separates Tolkien and Martin. Tyrion isn't a hearty, ax-wielding, gold-mining member of a noble dwarven race. He's not Gimli. Tyrion is an actual dwarf, achondroplastic and stubby-limbed, a joke to passersby and an embarrassment to his family.[11]

Tyrion is intelligent, witty and well-read, and shares his father's skill for business and political maneuvering.[10] Grossman describes the character as "a bitter, cynical, high-born dwarf", calling him "Martin's Falstaff".[12] David Orr of The New York Times notes Tyrion to be "a cynic, a drinker, an outcast and conspicuously the novels' most intelligent presence."[2] As an outcast, he displays sympathy for other outcasts, and the otherwise mistreated; the TV series version of the character commiserates with the illegitimate son of Ned Stark by saying "All dwarves are bastards in their father's eyes."[13] Still, he is usually seen for his deformities and vices, rather than his virtues and good deeds.[10]Tom Shippey of the Wall Street Journal points out that other characters underrate Tyrion: "His dwarf-status acts as a kind of protection, because — though he is probably the most intelligent character in the whole cast list — no one takes him seriously."[14] Acknowledging that Tyrion's wit, humor and cunning are his survival mechanism, actor Dinklage told The New York Times that "He knows he has no skills with the sword, and this is a world that is really deeply violent. Military rules. He would not be able to survive in that world, given his own strength. So he beats people to the punchline – he's entertaining."[9]

Creation and overview[edit]

In 1981, Martin was collaborating with Lisa Tuttle on a trio of novellas that would be published as the novel Windhaven:

So while we were writing the books we thought about a dwarf who would have been the Lord of one of the islands. He had to be the ugliest person in the world but the most intelligent too. I kept that idea in my mind and it reappeared to me when I was starting to write Game of Thrones. So ... That's Tyrion Lannister.[1]

Tyrion is a prominent point of view character in the novels, and both David Orr of The New York Times and Lev Grossman of Time called him one of Martin's "finest creations."[2][11] Noting the character to be one of Martin's most popular, Dana Jennings of The New York Times called Tyrion "a bitter but brilliant dwarf whose humor, swagger and utter humanity make him the (often drunken) star of the series."[3] Thomas M. Wagner wrote in 2001 that the character "may very well be the strongest antihero in all of contemporary fantasy."[15] Dan Kois of The New York Times also noted in 2012 that "for fans of the novels, Tyrion is among the most beloved among the scores of kings, warriors, wenches, slaves, queens and monsters that populate George R. R. Martin's world."[16] Martin said, "My readers identify with the outcast, with the underdog, with the person who's struggling rather than the golden boy."[16]

Martin himself has singled out Tyrion as his favorite character in the series.[1][4][17] Asked why, Martin said in a 2000 interview:

I think his wit is appealing. He gets off a lot of good iconoclastic, cynical one-liners, and those are fun to write. He's also a very gray character. All my characters are gray to a greater or lesser extent, but Tyrion is perhaps the deepest shade of gray, with the black and white in him most thoroughly mixed, and I find that very appealing. I've always liked gray characters more than black-and-white characters ... I look for ways to make my characters real and to make them human, characters who have good and bad, noble and selfish, well-mixed in their natures. Yes, I do certainly want people to think about the characters, and not just react with a knee-jerk. I read too much fiction myself in which you encounter characters who are very stereotyped. They're heroic-hero and dastardly-villain, and they're completely black or completely white. And that's boring, so far as I'm concerned.[17]

Tyrion appears first in A Game of Thrones (1996), and then in A Clash of Kings (1998) and A Storm of Swords (2000). He is one of a handful of "sorely missed" major characters that do not appear in 2005's A Feast for Crows,[18] but on his website in 2006 Martin released a sample chapter featuring Tyrion from his next novel A Dance with Dragons.[19] In advance of the publication of A Dance with Dragons in 2011, Martin confirmed Tyrion's presence in the novel and called him one of "the characters people have been waiting for."[20] Grossman concurred, writing of A Dance with Dragons, "Now the camera has swung back to the main characters: Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister."[11]James Poniewozik of Time added that the return of these "favorite characters" gave A Dance with Dragons a "narrative edge" over A Feast for Crows.[21] In April 2012, Martin read a Tyrion chapter from his forthcoming The Winds of Winter at Eastercon;[5] a second Tyrion chapter was read at Worldcon in August 2013 and later released in the official A World of Ice and FireiOS application on March 20, 2014.[6][22][23]

Development[edit]

As A Game of Thrones begins, Tyrion is a witty, hedonistic curiosity, protected by his family status but still the object of subtle derision. He is perhaps the most intelligent member of his family, but consistently underestimated and marginalized.[2][14] Tyrion embraces the advantages of being a Lannister, but at the same time is all too aware of its negative aspects, and his own place as the embarrassment of the family. Initially he is the one Lannister remotely sympathetic to the Starks, but he is soon caught in the middle of the escalating conflict between the two Houses.[27] Taken prisoner and put on trial for his life, "all of his skills at conniving must be brought to bear simply to stay alive."[27] With the Starks and Lannisters now fully at war, Tywin tasks Tyrion to manage affairs at King's Landing, recognizing that his son is intelligent, clever and has inherited his skills with statecraft. In A Clash of Kings, Tyrion relishes his new power, but finds that his sincere efforts to stabilize his nephew Joffrey's rule are being undermined and thwarted by the misguided and self-serving machinations of everyone around him. He plots to nullify the counterproductive whims of Joffrey and Cersei, but the "much-maligned dwarf" finds himself "teetering between order and disaster as he tries to keep the Lannisters from losing absolutely everything."[15] Thomas M. Wagner calls it a "defining moment" when Tyrion comments that he is all that keeps chaos from overwhelming the family and population who both despise him.[15] Roberta Johnson of Booklist likens Tyrion to the calculating title character of Robert Graves' I, Claudius.[28]

In A Storm of Swords, Tywin reclaims the office of Hand of the King and gives Tyrion the seemingly-impossible task of turning the failing royal finances around. Tyrion's previous efforts, crucial in keeping Joffrey in power and saving King's Landing from invasion, are all but forgotten. Joffrey, emboldened by Tywin's return, publicly humiliates Tyrion; when Joffrey is grotesquely murdered immediately after, everyone eagerly points the finger at Tyrion. Cersei does everything in her power to assure that he is declared guilty at trial. Innocent, but condemned to death and hated more than ever, Tyrion takes a dark turn. Martin explains:

[Tyrion]'s lost everything ... He's lost his position in House Lannister, he's lost his position in court, he's lost all of his gold – which is the one thing that's kind of sustained him throughout his life ... and he's also found out that Jaime – the one blood relation that he loved unreservedly and has his back, and was always on his side – played a part in this traumatic event of his life, the ultimate betrayal ... He's so hurt that he wants to hurt other people ... and he knows that just up this ladder is a chamber that was once his that now his father has usurped from him ... And I don't think he knows what he's gonna say or do when he gets up there but he – some part of him feels compelled to do it. And of course then we find Shae there, that's an additional shock to him, an additional knife in his belly. I think sometimes people just get pushed too far, sometimes people break. And I think Tyrion has reached his point. He's been through hell, he's faced death over and over again, and he's been betrayed, as he sees it, by all the people that he's tried to take care of, that he's tried to win the approval of. He's been trying to win his father's approval all his life.[29]

Finding his former lover Shae in his father's bed, Tyrion strangles her to death. Confronting Tywin with a crossbow soon after, he ultimately murders his father as well.[11] To Martin, "the two actions are quite different, although they occur within moments of each other." The author continues, "He's furious at Lord Tywin because he found out the truth about his first wife and what happened to her, and ... Lord Tywin is convinced that since he doesn't love Tyrion, then no one can possibly love Tyrion." As Tywin repeatedly calls Tyrion's tragic first wife Tysha a "whore," Tyrion warns him to stop. Tywin has always taught his son that you must follow through on your threats if you are defied, so when he fails to heed Tyrion's warning, the dwarf kills him. "And it will haunt him. Tywin was his father and that will continue to haunt him, probably for the rest of his life," says the author.[29] To Martin, Shae's murder is something else:

With Shae, it's a much more deliberate and in some ways a crueler thing. It's not the action of a second, because he's strangling her slowly and she's fighting, trying to get free. He could let go at any time. But his anger and his sense of betrayal is so strong that he doesn't stop until it's done and that's probably the blackest deed that he's ever done. It's the great crime of his soul along with what he did with his first wife by abandoning her after the little demonstration Lord Tywin put on ... it's again something that's going to haunt him, while the act of killing his father is something of enormous consequence that would be forever beyond the pale, for no man is as cursed as a kinslayer.[29]

"Fan-favorite" Tyrion returns to the narrative in A Dance with Dragons, as he flees Westeros following the murders of Shae and Tywin "in a state of shock at his own actions".[11][30]Across the narrow sea in Pentos and Slaver's Bay he soon finds himself "in just about the most humiliating and dire circumstances in a life that has seen more than its share of such."[30] Cut off from his family's wealth and influence, he must use his wits to survive.[21] As Booklist notes, "his astonishing adaptability evident as he goes from captive to conspirator to slave to mercenary without losing his tactical influence."[31] Still in possession of the "cruel wit that has seen him through in the past," Tyrion provides, according to Thomas M. Wagner, the "warmest and most sympathetic moments" in the novel.[30]

Storylines[edit]

A Game of Thrones[edit]

In A Game of Thrones (1996), Tyrion visits the Stark stronghold of Winterfell with King Robert Baratheon's entourage. While there, Tyrion tries to befriend Ned Stark's bastard son Jon Snow, and provides Ned's recently crippled son Bran with a saddle design to help him ride a horse. On the road home, Tyrion is taken prisoner by Ned's wife Catelyn, who believes he ordered the attempted murder of Bran. Taken to Catelyn's Lannister-hating sister Lysa Arryn at the Eyrie, Tyrion demands a trial by combat and is championed by the mercenary Bronn, who wins his freedom. Using his wit and the promise of a reward, Tyrion wins over the hill tribes of the Vale while on his way to the Lannister army camp. Finally impressed with Tyrion's political instincts, his father Tywin appoints Tyrion acting Hand of the King in an attempt to control Joffrey, who is now king in the wake of Robert's death and has recklessly had Ned Stark beheaded. While at the camp, Tyrion beds a prostitute named Shae and takes her with him to the capital.[10]

A Clash of Kings[edit]

Tyrion arrives at King's Landing in A Clash of Kings (1998) and immediately recognizes the chaos created by Joffrey and Cersei. Seeking to consolidate power and preserve order in the capital, Tyrion methodically removes Cersei's supporters from positions of power, enraging her though their father's protection prevents her from openly retaliating. Disgusted by Joffrey's behavior and Cersei's failure to control him, Tyrion openly opposes the young king and tries to keep royal captive Sansa Stark out of harm's way. Tyrion masterminds the defense of King's Landing against Stannis Baratheon, even leading a sortie that drives Stannis from the gates. Afterwards, Tyrion is attacked and is grievously injured by one of the Kingsguard on orders to kill him. Tyrion suspects Joffrey or Cersei, but is unable to get revenge on either.[32]

A Storm of Swords[edit]

Upon his recovery in A Storm of Swords (2000), Tyrion finds that he has lost most of his nose, and a returned Tywin has assumed the position of Hand himself. Tyrion is appointed Master of Coin, the treasurer, as a reward for his successful leadership. After learning of a Tyrell plot to claim Winterfell through marriage to Sansa, Tywin forces Tyrion to marry her instead. Sympathetic to Sansa's situation, Tyrion leaves their marriage unconsummated, despite his father's orders to conceive a child with her as soon as possible. At the celebration of his wedding to Margaery Tyrell, Joffrey taunts and humiliates Tyrion; when Joffrey is murdered with poison minutes later, Cersei accuses Tyrion, who is arrested. His previous good deeds forgotten, Tyrion is put on trial as Cersei manipulates the proceedings to ensure a guilty verdict. He is heartbroken to find that even Shae has turned against him. In his grief, Tyrion demands a trial by combat. Oberyn Martell agrees to be Tyrion's champion, and nearly succeeds, but dies in the attempt. Pronounced guilty, Tyrion is taken to the dungeon to await his execution. Jaime frees him with the help of Varys, eventually confessing his complicity in Tywin's ruin of Tyrion's first wife. Furious, Tyrion swears revenge on his family for a lifetime of cruelty. Before escaping the palace, Tyrion goes to confront his father, and finds Shae in Tywin's bed. After strangling her in a rage, Tyrion murders Tywin as well, and flees Westeros.[33]

A Dance with Dragons[edit]

In A Dance With Dragons (2011), Tyrion travels to Pentos, where he finds himself under the protection of wealthy Magister Illyrio Mopatis. There he learns that Varys and Illyrio have secretly plotted to return the Targaryens to power since the murder of the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen. On Illyrio's advice, Tyrion decides to seek out and join Aerys' surviving daughter Daenerys at Meereen and help her reclaim the Iron Throne. He eventually realizes that two of his traveling companions are not what they seem. One is Jon Connington, disgraced former Hand of the King; the other claims to be Aegon VI Targaryen, Aerys' grandson, whom Varys had spirited away and replaced with another baby that was then killed during the Lannisters' sack of King's Landing. While in Volantis, Tyrion visits a brothel and is recognized and captured by Jorah Mormont, an exiled former advisor to Daenerys. Jorah hopes that delivering a Lannister to her will return Jorah to her good graces. On the journey, Tyrion encounters a dwarf woman named Penny whom he had previously met at Joffrey's wedding feast. Before they can reach Meereen, all three are captured by the slavers currently besieging the city. When a plague strikes the slaver's siege camps, Tyrion engineers their escape by joining the Second Sons, a mercenary company. In exchange for membership, Tyrion promises the company the wealth of the Lannister ancestral seat of Casterly Rock, his birthright since Jaime has renounced it. Tyrion quickly realizes the slavers are on the losing side, and attempts to convince the Second Sons to change their allegiance.[34]

TV adaptation[edit]

Executive producers/writers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss had pitched the idea of adapting Martin's series for television to HBO in March 2006, and the network secured the rights in January 2007.[35][36] The first actor cast was Peter Dinklage as Tyrion in May 2009.[37] Benioff and Weiss later noted that the funny and "incredibly smart" Dinklage was their first choice for the role, as the actor's "core of humanity, covered by a shell of sardonic dry wit, is pretty well in keeping with the character."[16] Unfamiliar with the source material, Dinklage was cautious in his first meeting with the producers; as a dwarf, "he wouldn't play elves or leprechauns" and – choosy about genre roles – he had just come from portraying the dwarf Trumpkin in 2008's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.[16] Benioff and Weiss told Dinklage that the character was "a different kind of fantasy little person," or in the actor's words, "No beard, no pointy shoes, a romantic, real human being."[16] Dinklage signed on to play Tyrion before the meeting was half over, in part because "They told me how popular he was."[16]

Seasons 1 and 2 (2011-2012) follow the events of A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings, respectively.[38] The plot of A Storm of Swords was split into Seasons 3 and 4 (2013-2014).[38][39][40] Both Season 5 and a theoretical Season 6 will adapt material from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons,[41] novels whose plots run concurrently and each contain different characters.[42] Though the HBO series has alternately extended, abbreviated, conflated and diverged from the novels' plot lines,[43] Tyrion's character and story arc have remained mostly consistent with Martin's writing.[44]

Season 1

Calling the character the "black sheep" of the Lannister family, TV Guide wrote as the show premiered in 2011 that "Tyrion sees through all the chicanery and decides the best option is to drink and bed his way though the Seven Kingdoms."[45]The Boston Globe added that he is "a hedonistic intellectual who can talk his way out of anything."[13] According to the Los Angeles Times, "brilliant but low-living" Tyrion is "so well acquainted with the workings of the world he can hardly bear it, the Imp is ... debauched, perhaps, but a truth-teller nonetheless, fighting for his own survival with as much mercy as he can spare."[46]The New York Times went as far as to name Tyrion "the closest thing to a hero" in the HBO series.[16]

Season 2

During the second season, Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times wrote that "Tyrion is just about the only character developing any complexity. Maybe even a glimmer of a conscience."[47] Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker noted, "If the show has a hero, it's Tyrion (Dinklage), who is capable of cruelty but also possesses insight and empathy, concealed beneath a carapace of Wildean wit."[48]The Hollywood Reporter called Tyrion "the one to watch, as he's the smartest Lannister and knows that having a brat for a king – who mistreats all those around him – could cause major backlash."[49] Willa Paskin of Salon called the character's increased prominence in Season 2 "a trade up in entertainment value, and a trade-off in morality."[50] She added, "Tyrion is more cynical, more manipulative and much better suited to surviving. He's not so keen to be made into meat, and that makes him the kind of man characters in the show and audience members alike should be investing in."[50] Praising Dinklage, Dan Kois of The New York Times wrote, "He plays Tyrion as the only modern man in a muddy, violent, primal world. He loves good food, good conversation and a good book. Unlike the warmongering lords and knights of Westeros, but like most HBO subscribers, he would prefer to stay out of battle."[16] Kois adds that, "Dinklage's bravado masks Tyrion's deep well of melancholy."[16] Of the Season 2 storyline, Dinklage noted that Tyrion enjoys not only his foray into battle, but also his new and unprecedented power at court.[51] He said, "This is a character that's been shit upon his whole life. I mean, he comes from great wealth, but he's treated very poorly, so now there's a newfound respect where if somebody calls him a name, he can have them killed. He never had that before. Tyrion definitely enjoys that part and he's trying desperately to hold onto it. He's enjoying it while it lasts 'cause he's not sure it's gonna last very long."[51] As Varys the Spymaster tells Tyrion, power is "a trick, a shadow on the wall ... and a very small man can cast a very large shadow."[48]

Season 3

Season 2 leaves Tyrion "broke, beaten, scarred for life and stripped of his power," despite having been instrumental in saving King's Landing from invasion.[52] It is his chance to escape the sordid and deadly "game of thrones," but he cannot bring himself to, confessing, "Bad people are what I'm good at."[52] So Tyrion finds he must submit to Tywin's plan of marrying him to Sansa Stark; despite being drunk in order to soothe his many woes, Tyrion manages to save Sansa from being publicly stripped and likely raped by Joffrey, and later "chooses decency over filial loyalty and elects not to consummate the marriage after all."[53] Tyrion is also now powerless against Joffrey's malice, but Tywin has asserted his control over the young king, if only when it serves his own desires; he stops Joffrey from presenting Sansa with her brother's head, but not because he cares about Sansa or Tyrion's outrage.[54] Despite Tywin's continuous determination to make Tyrion feel "miserable and unloved," he believes he is a good father – because he resisted the urge to cast Tyrion into the sea at birth.[54] Though he should not be surprised by his father's coldblooded machinations, Tyrion is horrified by Tywin's involvement in the Red Wedding; Todd VanDerWerff writes, "only Tyrion seems to understand that the blood they spilled will eventually be avenged. The North may have calmed for now, but it won't be calm always."[55] Of that storyline, Matt Fowler of IGN notes, "Only an event that powerful could keep series-favorite Tyrion out of an episode for the first time."[56]

Season 4

In March 2014, Dinklage confirmed that Season 4 would "stick fairly closely" to Tyrion's plot line in A Storm of Swords, adding that "those reversals of fortune really send [Tyrion] down the rabbit hole." He notes that the character changes in Season 4, and "really ends up in a different place than he thought he was going to. It's fueled a bit by anger towards his family, and trying to find his place in the world. You see that some people rely on drunk, funny Tyrion. I think funny and drunk lasts only so long. He sobers up in many ways. And love is in his life [with Shae], and that causes a tremendous amount of damage – because he's vulnerable and he doesn't like to be vulnerable. He's completely stripped of his defense mechanisms."[44] Of Tyrion's relationship with his brother Jaime, Dinklage said, "If you're raised together, you have an unspoken dialogue many times, and it's very easy, especially between Jaime and Tyrion. They have a real friendship, a good brotherhood. They look after each other."[44] As in the novels, Tyrion is (unfairly) found guilty of Joffrey's murder and condemned to death; the HBO series does not use the reveal that his first wife was not really a prostitute to motivate Tyrion to kill his father, and he does not lie to Jaime that he is guilty of killing Joffrey.[57][58]

Recognition and awards[edit]

From the beginning, Dinklage's performance received much critical praise. The Boston Globe called his Tyrion one of the show's "highlights," adding that Dinklage "gives a winning performance that is charming, morally ambiguous, and self-aware."[13] Matt Roush of TV Guide told viewers to "rejoice in the scene-stealing bravado of Peter Dinklage as the wry 'imp' Tyrion Lannister."[45] The Los Angeles Times wrote "In many ways, Game of Thrones belongs to Dinklage"[46] even before, in Season 2, the "scene-stealing actor's" character became the series' most central figure.[50]The New York Times noted that as beloved as the character of Tyrion is to the novels' fans, "Dinklage's sly performance has made Tyrion all the more popular."[16]The Huffington Post called Tyrion the "most quotable" character on the HBO series, as well as one of the most beloved.[59]

Merchandising[edit]

Among the various lines of Game of Thrones collectible figurines licensed by HBO, Tyrion has featured prominently, being dubbed one of the "heavy hitters", "fan favorites", "most-liked" and "most popular" characters.[80][81][82]

Funko has produced two Tyrion figures as part of their POP! Television line. They are 4.5 inch vinyl figures in the Japanese super deformed style, one in an early series look,[83] and a post-Season 2 version with a facial scar, "Battle Armor" and an axe.[84][85] The company also produced a Mystery Mini Blind Box figurine of a stylized Tyrion.[86] As part of their Legacy Collection line of action figures, Funko released a "Hand of the King" Tyrion,[87][88] a Tyrion in armor with axe,[82][89][90] as well as a Limited Edition "2014 San Diego Comic-Con Exclusive" armor version with a helmet.[91] Threezero released a 1/6 scale 8 5/8 inch figure,[81][92][93][94] and Dark Horse produced both a 6 inch figurine,[80][95][96] and a 10 inch high-end statue for which the series' producers chose Tyrion as the subject.[97][98]